The Lepki Chart - Summer 2010 iTunes Play Counts

Every so often I have to bin some music from my laptop. This time round artists twixt A and E felt the wrath of my delete key...


I love Manchester music, and the whole baggy sound, but when Ian Brown gets serious and over James Lavelle's his groove it all loses its sloppy charm somewhat.
Both Arctic Monkeys albums bit the digital dust this month as did some choppy changey Avalanches tracks. The early zeroes feels quite dated now as archives were plundered and remixed for the ADD generation.
Bjork's later albums - Medulla and Volta albums probably need some serious listening, but I can never quite find the mood. A few Tchaikovsky symphonies were worthy but largely unplayed and made way as did some unsorted Charlie Parker.

Jazz in general needs to be loved and have a back story. You can't just plonk 6GB of someone else's music on an ipod and start enjoying it - you need to have been in a record shop when a trumpet caught your ear, or in some east London flat at 3am as the conversation became quieter and slower and it was just Miles filling the pre-sunlight void.
Chemical Brothers, Deep Purple's Come Taste the Band, and Duffy bid adieu too.

So what was top of the pops in Summer 2010? Well you can listen on Spotify here...
Melodic and largely acoustic music was flavour of the season, with Iron & Wine springing in from nowhere with their 2007 album The Shepherd's Dog accounting for most plays.

Early days of having a child in the house meant gentle songs were the preferred accompaniment.

Next down the new entries is Caribou's Swim. In a classic piece of counter-programming, Caribou's electro heavy, slightly disintegrating melodic trance packs a punch of intruguing non-resolution.

Deerhunter - Microcastle is a logical continuation of the Atlas Sound Sound which has been popular on the Lepki Pod since this time last year.

Doris - Did you Give the World Some love today baby is a lovely timepiece from the late 60's which is a little bit of European Motown. I think of Doris Svennson as a cross between Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, with a little bit of Cardigans/Carpenters thrown in.

Finally, the Dark Night Of The Soul was the token melancholy album of the month, with the Sparklehorse collaboration heavy piece of work mixing up catchy lyrical hooks with moody menacing nightmares.

The Lepki Chart - Autumn 2009 iTunes Play Counts

Spurred on by finding some The Farm on my iTunes... DELETE DELETE... I have put together the long awaited LEPKI CHART for Autumn 2009.

• Atlas Sound Logos burst onto the scene in September, racking up 130 track plays in little more than 2 months. The band look likely to overtake Fleet Foxes in the 2009 chart, as the bearded harmonisers struggle to maintain their pre-Glastonbury momentum.

• Perennially popular Yo La Tengo released a new album which includes a mixture of sticky and now overplayed songs. Some slower burners should make their way onto the work playlists and maintain the Hoboken trio's continued presence at the top.
• Luna by The Aliens has now become 2009's most played album, while the Neil Young Premium playlist draws songs from a range of albums, as do the Velvet Underground.
• As Spotify becomes a useful sample source, it is timely that a new "artistic impression" is launched, with the inaugural award being shared by David Bowie's A New Career in a New Town and Can's Vitamin C.

• Nirvana, Tosca, King Gheedorah and some lower quality Ian Brown songs have been and gone without troubling the scorers.
• Blur drop out of recently played artists table.

Autumn Most Played Artists (Sum of Tracks played)

Atlas Sound 130

Yo La Tengo 112

The Aliens 69

Angelo Badalamenti 68

The Velvet Underground 57

Radiohead 56

Neil Young 54

Pink Floyd 52

Broadcast 51

Stereolab 45

Broadcast & The Focus Group 40

The Beta Band 38

John Wyndham 37